"What if she's part of the crowd...?"
"How will I be able to approach her if she has already seen me like this…?" As he bowed his head in shame, his eyes moving in a circular manner in their sockets, his body shaking, all he thought of was nothing. "...will I even be able to stand among these people ever again...?" He whispered low, and even his breaths became cozy, cold, and frozen.
Without hesitation, he dashed out.
Oliver moved without looking at the direction he was heading; whether it was a valley, a wall, or a pit, he minded not. All he wanted was to escape the laughter, the hands pointing at him, and the perception lingering in their minds.
"Hah! Hah! Hah! Hah!"
While he ran through them, his heart pounded hard, harder and faster than a dying man. Sweat pulled and fell from his body, leaving traces on the ground his foot stepped upon. He could see the crowd still staring, still laughing; even in the vast distance he had reached, there was no way he would escape it.
As he stumbled upon a huge tree, he paused; his legs gave out from the energy he used. But his heart hadn't stopped pounding, the profound cycle of rise and fall of his chest hadn't stopped, nor was the sweat. But now, the distance had become so vast that even with a long-distance telescope, the crowd wouldn't be able to see him or point at him.
"Why do I need to go through this each and every day?" ..." Seeing the space around the tree filled with countless soul-calming grass and bright fruit, he crushed his body on the ground. "WHY!?" His voice carried a sense of sorrow, tears, and dark energy, like an eagle under a chase.
Then, it happened.
A bright light emitted from the abyss of the tree—the very tree he had stumbled upon, the one he thought had offered safety.
He felt it before he saw it. A heat, like scorched breath against his skin.
He felt a deep, strong, and eerie energy around the light; it wasn't the sun, but it scorched like the flames of the sun, nor was it a void, but he felt the atmosphere had turned into a deep, dark, unbearable surface.
'Why are the trees all turning their branches away from the light…? Why is the grass bending towards the light? What kind of light is that?' Being laughed at, disgraced, and having hands thrown upon him, there was nothing left for him to do again; not even a second escape thought came into his mind.
He just gave up.
Gave up on life itself.
How cruel life was to him, how everyone treated him, and how he felt among people even when it was his time to do something.
There was nothing left in him to live.
His hands slammed on the ground, enough to conceive it had also given up on him. His very body wasn't ready to stand by him.
"Remember…!" Remember…! Remember…!"
While he stayed on the ground like a lifeless being, he heard a voice. Not trimmed. Not sharp. Not shallow. Just a clear, perfect voice.
It lingered around him for a while, almost as if the very source sensed his thought, held his illusions, and touched his soul. Oliver couldn't even differentiate the tone it had from that of a god, an animal, a human, thunder, wind, or even a sea tide.
Before he knew it, the light had descended from the abyss of the tree to his chest. Now there was nothing left for him to see, not even the thick nature of the trees around him, not the insects that flew around him with their tails emitting small shimmers of light. The light captured his gaze, leaving him with a bright surface, bright enough to blind his vision.
But in the midst of the light, he saw it. It wasn't a human, an object, or a magical being, but he saw what no one was supposed to see. Something hidden even in the sight of the gods.
He got pulled instinctively like a shrimp.
"Where am I…?" For a while there was nothing he could see, not even the texture of darkness. But he felt different; the corners of his eyes began to widen, turning wide. All he could feel now was the pain growing in the socket of his eyes. But the pain wasn't the cause of the light, but rather, it was the atmosphere spooning around him. "...why do I feel so different? Why do I feel refreshed…?" He kept lingering around, turning in all directions. He felt the sudden shift in his body as the spooning environment became stable, fixed, and neutral.
"Where am I?" After seeing the exact angle, the texture of the ground looked like golden glass, and the sky seemed like a golden-grey beam. His mind began to linger around, trying to find a meaning for what he was seeing. Where he stood. How the environment felt unearthly.
Chee…. As he stood with a confused mind, a sharp sound bounced around him like a ball. Due to its nature, Oliver couldn't resist or forget. For a while the sound stops, like being controlled by a force. How it came to take place and how it ended all became a mystery to uncover in the new environment he had been pulled to.
While he moved around, he picked up tiny giggles. At first, he thought the metallic glass and the golden-colored stones were the ones making that noise. But as he moved further and further away from the stones and the glasses, the noise also increased.
"Hihihi…" Then it came again; this time he felt it close to him, but he couldn't figure out what really made that sound. Then, as he searched for the source of the giggles, his mind drove back to the pointed hands and the cruel laughter that was thrown at him. Instinctively, he sensed the liquid that caused them to make fun of him, laugh at him, and even mess around with him was all gone.